Uniform versus peak-load pricing of a bottleneck with elastic demand

This paper considers commuting to work across a bottleneck such as a bridge or tunnel, with elastic demand. With no toll, there is wasteful queueing. The optimal peak-load toll eliminates queueing and leaves total traffic unchanged. The second-best uniform toll cannot eliminate queueing, but reduces total traffic. The second-best uniform toll may be larger or smaller than the maximum value of the optimal peak-load toll.